


Send in the Clowns (Ardor)

by DM (altilis)



Series: I wish we might be friends [3]
Category: A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Genre: M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-17
Updated: 2007-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:24:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altilis/pseuds/DM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rather angsty take on their relationship: pushing and pulling but never quite understanding until the very end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Send in the Clowns (Ardor)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't apologize for songfic I wrote in my youth. It's a really good song, anyway.

**  
_Isn't it rich? Are we a pair?_   
**

Even though the rain pours on the streets outside, even with the sky dark and heavy to confide them indoors, joy wells in Sydney’s heart.

Their hands intertwine, the both bask in the warmth of the fireplace, and Sydney loves how he can taste mint on those rose-pink lips.

 **  
_Me, here at last on the ground, and you, in mid-air_   
**

“Look upon yourself: an esteemed reputation, a family, a way in the world…” Sydney exalts him and pouts—sulks—at the same time. It is an innate skill he has honed since his student days in Paris and must be tolerated by all around.

His companion sighs, and strokes his hair, and responds: “Be quiet, Carton.”

Sydney sulks in silence.

 **  
_Send in the clowns._   
**

As much as Sydney loves, he loathes as well, as he loathes himself.

This time, they’re confrontational; persons are shoved up against rough, brick alley-walls; curses are brandished to-and-fro.

But once Sydney locks gazes with the blue eyes before him, the passionate loathing twists into a passion all in itself.

 **  
_Isn't it bliss? Don't you approve?_   
**

During a spring picnic, they go for a walk. Not hand-in-hand, nor arm-in-arm, but as platonic friends. There are times when they need to talk.

After minutes of silence, they stop underneath a giant oak which stands alone among a large flat lawn of emerald green grass—a perfect view. Sydney glances over to a fair face with golden hair and an even fairer face of smaller proportions, before he looks back.

“Is this—that is what you hold dear, over there; am I to be the fringe of your acquaintance?”

“You are an acquaintance on all your own.”

 **  
_One who keeps tearing around, and one who can't move_   
**

It is another session again, another bog of work before the Long Vacation, before he has the chance to forget about work and the more important things.

Things are not going so bad, anymore; he tells himself this repeatedly. Yet his table and his tab tell a different story: two bottles of wine, a half-empty bottle of cognac held straight in his hand.

He’s slumped over the table.

A hand lies upon his shoulder, jerking him awake so that when he opens his own eyes, he meets those of blue. “Let me lead you home, Carton,” Compassion layers the voice. “You’ve had enough glasses to-night.”

“There are never enough glasses—” Sydney gripes, turning away. “For you.”

 **  
_But where are the clowns? Send in the clowns._   
**

Stryver mentions to him one night, when they are all having dinner, “See what a couple they make, Sydney! There could not be a gladder sight on the chapel steps themselves.”

Sydney pours another glass of red wine—to the brim, this time—not caring for moral and etiquette.

 **  
_Just when I stopped opening doors,_   
**

There was a time when Sydney was sure that no one in the world would ever “fulfill” him, that the words of the married were words of the foolish, and that all he would ever be known for was nothing at all. The world had no need of him and he of the world—and that was that. He was here to roam Temple Bar, to be the Jackal, to drink the liquor that would otherwise be not drunk.

And then he stepped into court, that day in year one thousand seven hundred and eighty.

 _  
**  
_Finally finding the one that I wanted was yours._   
**   
_

Then, in that year, one thousand seven hundred and eighty, Sydney had the most interesting dinner, one that he will always recall. Yet it was not until later, much later, that he realized the weight of his acquaintance.  


 _  
**  
_Making my entrance again with my usual flair._   
**   
_

And since that year, one thousand seven hundred and eighty, Sydney pursues what he almost alienated with hot fervor. Yet he masks his determination with wandering drunkenness, a false love, and a façade of friendship.

It weaves a tangling web of knowing and un-knowing.

 **  
_Don't you love a farce? My fault, I fear._   
**

Sydney’s desire to keep this hidden stems not from his own fear but fear for them both. He knows that there is nothing the law can destroy of his, but such ripples will disturb more than one that he touches.

So they hide it—bury it within the confines of each other’s dark crannies and secret-places, until it erupts on dark evenings with closed doors.

Sydney knows he should not be surprised when in the light of day, there lies no trace of love, or passion, or ardor.

 **  
_I thought that you'd want what I want, sorry, my dear._   
**

“But—” Sydney grips the lapels of the coat as if they are his last life line. “Nobody knows, she has yet to lay eyes on us, and that old man could not guess if we told him the truth--”

Calmer lands lay on his which shake, easing them off the lapels and guiding them back to his sides. They are standing so close, so close that as their breaths crystallize in the winter eve, they mingle as they dissipate.

“It was close last time, Sydney,” It is but a faint whisper, leaned close to be said right to his ear. “Let us hold off our affections, at least until the spring. We can resume when the holidays are not so pressing between myself and her.”

“Don’t leave me to freeze in cold and wanting,” Sydney continues to plead, desperately, leaned in to that warm body, embracing around the torso until he is pushed and held away.

“It is only a season,” An almost mocking reassurance is what he is left with. The footsteps fade off with the harsh crunching of boots in snow.

 **  
_But where are the clowns? Send in the clowns--_   
**

The holidays sweep in like an unwelcome blizzard to Sydney’s door. The windows frost over with cold and ice, combating the warmth that spills from the fireplace. In the sky, the sun leans towards the horizon to bring in the Christmas dinner.

Sydney unscrews the glass cap of the cognac bottle and anticipates the taste of Paris on his lips again.

 **  
_Don't bother, they're here._   
**

Before the snifter is touched, the door knocks to beckon Sydney from his chair, murmuring and grumbling, to answer it.

He can hardly breathe.

“Will you dine with us tonight, Carton? The flat must be horribly lonely to-night, and my excellent wife promises you a dinner you will savour to your last days.”

“…Ah, yes, yes—” He scrambles to cap the bottle and to grab his coat before he is out the door without a word of protest or a moment of deliberation. “Of course.”

 **  
_Isn't it rich? Isn't it queer?_   
**

The winter diminishes into spring before Sydney realizes. The celibacy that he had once so cherished as a youth and as a student now tolls on his mind and his concentration, yet make him even more valuable to the Lion; Stryver fails to see how he stares at the punchbowl with a sense of listlessness.

He shadows the Lion more than he did this time last year. He watches Stryver shoulder his way in and out of people’s business, but today is especially interesting. When they catch Darnay at the bank, Sydney hangs back as he watches the two men duel with words and opinions.

The cold of winter has already melted away from them all. Yet what Sydney yearns for most, the ardor, ceases to come, leaving him frozen and chilled.

 **  
_Losing my timing this late in my career._   
**

It is that night on the fourteenth of August, in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two. Sydney lay away awake with a troubling, chronic insomnia, staring out the window to the sky over London, completely refusing to succumb to siren’s song of the bottle on the table.

A knock on the door.

He launches himself from his chair to the door because only one person ever knocks on his door; he opens it to find the face that he expects and yearns for.

The guest lets himself in without a word from Sydney, shutting the door to ensure them privacy.

They stand in silence for but a moment, facing each other, before they are both swept up in a crushing embrace.

“What are you roaming about the streets so late at night?” Sydney whispers, not daring to let him go as he grasps him about the torso. “Your wife must be troubled—only seedy business goes on at night and neither of us can stand you dabbling in such affairs—”

“Sydney,” His rant halted by so meaningful a whisper, Sydney feels a foreshadowing shiver run up his spine. His voice is like ice. “I must go to France.”

Sydney shoves him away, face contorted in an expression of utter disbelief and distraught. The fear rises in his chest and throat like acidic bile, making him feel both faint and angry.

“You cannot go to France!” Mindful of his neighbors, he attempts to keep his voice to a dull roar—but the emotions are getting the better of him. “The riots in Paris! The murderers at the helm of it all! Charles, you will be killed!”

Charles steps up and embraces him; Sydney stands there, trembling with rage and panic, hands balled into fists and staunch in his resolve not to permit Charles to leave.

“I must clear the name of a man whom is to die. I will not permit his death to fall upon my name.”

“The name of Darnay, infamous in France—?”

“Evrémonde,” Charles corrects him without a second thought, but the admission sends Sydney into an ever-greater terror. His arms are tight about Charles, again.

“You cannot go,” He murmurs to Charles’ shoulder.

“I will go,” Charles assures him. “And I will return with all my good health. I will see you before the winter arrives, Sydney.”

He kisses him gently, as tears trail down Sydney’s cheeks.

 **  
_But where are the clowns? Send in the clowns._   
**

He curses Charles’ name as he stares over the Seine, up at Notre-Dame de Paris, and finally as he enters the gates of La Force. The man was so naïve, so proud, so completely ignorant of his danger—

And here he is. Sitting beside Barsad, he can only wonder what the other man thinks of his insanity, and up at the cell, he can only guess what Charles will think of his appearance.

When he sees him for the last time, he can almost taste the mint they first shared.

 **  
_Well, maybe next year._   
**

With each rolling bump of the farmer’s cut, with each falling slice of the blade, with each ascending step to the platform, Sydney can feel Charles about him, beside him, within him; even a kiss graces his forehead as the breeze sweeps by.

He would not have it any other way, than this.


End file.
